Comparative analyses for different modeling methods in high speed turning operations for hardened steel

The modeling of metal cutting process has been a challenging research topic due to the difficulty in accurate modeling of the contact and work material deformation with large plastic strain and friction, high temperature and strain rate, and their coupling effect. Among different modeling methods, finite element method (FEM) has proven to be a robust tool in predicting process parameters and optimizing cutting tool geometry. However successful implementation of a modeling method depends mainly on numerical formulation technique adopted for chip formation. The two formulation techniques namely the Lagrangian and the Eulerian have been used in the past by many researchers. Due to the various limitations of the two approaches, a new arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (ALE) method has been adopted for the orthogonal high speed turning operations for AISI H13 hardened steel. This approach does not need any chip separation criterion. For comparative analysis with other techniques, two Lagrangian models with element deletion and node splitting methods were also simulated and compared with experimental data. It has been found that ALE model results are in good agreement with the experimental ones as compared to the Lagrangian models.